Page 30 of Hero & Villain
I sat up and cradled my hand, staring at his chest instead of his face. “You remember me?”
He squinted at my hair. “It’s a distraction, for sure, but the rest of you more than makes up for it. You should have changed your eyes, your voice, or your mouth if you didn’t want me to recognize you. You’re very memorable.” His eyebrow twitched in the most annoying way, like super attractive but also incredibly infuriating.
I gritted my teeth and glared at him. “I was one girl. Nobody. There’s no reason for you to remember?—”
His words were a low growl that sent a curl of awareness through me. “That you kissed me like I was the best thing you’d ever tasted, that you kissed me longer than you had any reason to, except that you were caught up in my irresistible animal magnetism and couldn’t help?—”
I kissed him. As far as I could tell, that was the only way I could shut him up short of killing him, and like he’d said, Jezebelwouldn’t squeeze the trigger before the big race. He tasted like blood. Dominatrix or not, blood was not my thing, but past the blood was his mouth, and it was better than chocolate. His hands slid up my back, strong, but not rough. How could he be so gentle with me when I’d broken his nose? If he remembered our first kiss, he knew about my fear of heights, but had forced me to climb up and down six cliffs. He knew I wasn’t Nitro’s cousin. He didn’t owe me anything at all.
I pulled back, twisted Jezebel’s gun out of her hand and struck his temple with the handle in the precise point that would knock him out without doing any permanent damage. Maybe.
I stood up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand before tossing Jezebel’s gun back to her. “Grab his shoulders.” My heart had never been beating so fast, but I could do this. I had to.
She bent down and grabbed him under the armpits while I hoisted him up by the ankles. I staggered partly from my knee and partly because the man weighed a ton. How could he leap around like a ninja when he was so dense?
“Where are we taking him?” she asked as we moved towards the front door.
“I’m going to drive him out into the desert and let him walk back once he comes to.”
“I’ll come with you, that way I can make sure he stays unconscious without damaging his poor meat brains any further.” She grinned at me with dancing eyes, and I realized that she thought this was absolutely an acceptable way to spend the night. How often did she drag unconscious bodies around? I clearly needed to take evil villain lessons from her.
“Good. Where do you think he’d park? You know the streets better than I do.”
“Get his keys. Push the panic button.”
I frowned at her. “You think we should push the panic button on his car in the middle of the night?”
She shrugged as we stopped, and I dropped his ankles so I could open the door. I took a deep breath before picking them up again.
“He doesn’t look so heavy when he’s on his own feet, does he?” she asked cheerfully.
“Does he eat rocks?”
“Rocks would be lighter. Part of it is his armored suit. Good thing you didn’t try to hit his body. You’d have broken your precious musician hand.”
“I should have broken his nose with your gun.”
“No, it’s more romantic like this.”
I scowled at her. “I think your view of romance might be slightly skewed.”
“Oh, honey, it is, but I think I’m in good company.” She winked at me, reminding me that she’d heard the whole conversation about me kissing him, not to mention her watching me two minutes ago.
I sighed, and some of the anger went out of me. What was I doing? Had he known right away that I wasn’t Toni? When we went places, I was often mistaken for her and vice versa, unless our hair was visible. I’d assumed that he’d forget me as quickly as he’d forget any other stranger. He must have been keeping an eye on Toni. That’s what my grandfather would do with someone he thought he owned. Dirk would call it ‘being responsible for,’ but it was the same thing.
I was such an idiot. There was no possible way to salvage this mess. Or was there? I was Toni’s friend. That much was obvious, and I had been in a bad relationship. It made sense that I’d taken her identity and come here to get away from my abusive lover. He could ask Toni about it. She’d always have my back. He couldn’t have known who I really was. No one knew theconnection between Daniela Delavigne and Louis Haversham III that my grandfather didn’t own, except for Clint.
Clint and Dirk were business partners, but that didn’t mean they’d talked about me, did it?
“You’re thinking heavy thoughts,” she said once we reached the street full of dark, parked cars.
“To match this body. Fine. Let’s sound the car alarm.”
“You get to search his body. I don’t grope men for anything.”
I sighed and dropped his ankles with a thud, searching for the pocket. It was in a slit in the back, above his well-sculpted behind. I rolled my eyes at myself for blushing as I pulled out the small fob.
“I have no idea how to use this.”
